


Love Changes

by Brenna1918



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Possession, Bottom Sam Winchester, Businessman Brady, Dates, Deception, Demonic Possession, Detailed sex scenes might come in later, Falling in Love at the End of the World, Hunting, In-control Brady, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, M/M, Mythology & Folklore, Parental Issues, Protective Brady, Sam gets more in tune with the supernatural, Soft Sam Winchester, if i feel like it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:53:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25882402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brenna1918/pseuds/Brenna1918
Summary: The nameless demon takes over Brady's body the same way he does in canon, but things have already gone differently. Immediately assaulted by memories that indicate Sam has a crush on him, "Brady" decides on a new track for his mission. He will seduce Sam Winchester, leading him down the path of darkness as he does it.
Relationships: Demon Possessing Tyson Brady/Sam Winchester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	1. Second Chance

His name wasn’t important. 

Considering himself to be one of the more intelligent and emotionally controlled demons out there, he fully applied himself to whatever body he was currently wearing. Their sex, their facial features - their name - was his own. 

He reinvented himself every time he chose a new one. All except for his personality, that is. 

He liked to think that it was these very traits that he considered so integral to his very being that had him considered and eventually chosen for Operation Winchester, as he liked to call it. 

His mission, should he choose to accept it (and of course he did!) was to take care of the little, big problem that was Samuel Winchester end his hunting career. He had, for the most part, succeeded. 

The youngest Winchester had extricated himself from his family (a very dangerous act, little boy), gotten to a very good college, and settled on a very prestigious, promising career. A lawyer, of all things.

Samuel was almost certainly also working on the long-term goal of getting a sweet girlfriend who would be his wife and gave him his 2.5 kids. It had been heavily implied by Azazel that he should kill someone close to Sam to push him back into hunting, driven by a revenge-fueled blood-lust. 

He couldn’t help but overwhelmingly agree with that plan. After all, it had worked for Daddy Winchester and the best way to get naive little Sammy to extricate himself from his delusions of grandeur might just be to see them go up in flames, along with a loved-one, right in front of him. 

From watching (stalking) the boy at a distance, though, it appeared Sam hadn’t found that special person yet and didn’t even have any close friends besides his roommate, Brady. The demon had sneered after a few hours of watching the two best friends. 

Brady was a legacy rich kid, not the most spoiled the demon had seen, but definitely used to being handed everything. Did decent schoolwork, but was definitely a Type B personality and far more relaxed than most of his other peers. 

A business major his father had picked out for him and a top job at said father’s business waiting for him when he graduated. Or even if he didn’t graduate. No wonder Brady was so relaxed all the time. What did Brady have to worry about? Well, besides _him_. 

The demon smirked to himself. Yes, Brady’s days living on this Earth were numbered and it was all because of his close proximity to Sam. Sam would notice if he felt other students were watching him, so all the demon could do was watch from afar and listen to whatever of their conversations he could overhear. 

Listening to their phone calls was astronomically easier and how he got most of his information. 

He would need to possess the only person close enough to Sam to influence him, especially if he was going to introduce the boy to a girl he could kill.

Brady would _simply_ have to go. No need to worry, though. He would be a model best friend to Sammy!

So he'd taken to watching the building they lived in, waiting for Brady to leave at a good time. He needed an opportunity!

On the night it finally happened, Brady was walking down an empty alleyway to check out this store that an associate of his had pointed him towards. 

He entered the alley, hidden from view from the street, and the demon that would now take to calling himself Brady stepped out of it. The demon’s old, dead meatsuit stayed in the alley and would be found by police later on. 

The demon who would now be Brady sneered down at the purple silk t-shirt and board shorts he was wearing and calmly smoothed the wrinkles out of them as he waited for his host’s memories to open up to him. Brady was very familiar with taking over a new body, he did it frequently. 

He knew that soon every memory that the original Brady had ever had access to would soon be accessible to him, but it usually took a moment. 

His tanned hand froze on top of a shirt wrinkle as the memories at last slammed into him, the newest ones coming first and as they did, all of Brady’s carefully cultivated plans burst into flames. 

_“I think I like you, Brady.” The memory of Sam said with a hopelessly vulnerable look in his warm brown eyes as he looked at Old Brady._ This was the inciting incident that drove the human Brady out of their shared dorm that night. 

The memories told him that the human formerly in control of the body had freaked out, told Sam off, and took to the town for a breather, not even looking back at a desperate Sam calling out for him. _Understandable reaction,_ Brady decided. _But needlessly cruel execution._

But _this_ . This was _amazing_ . If he had wanted Sam to get a crush on someone . . . well, good news! He has! Old Brady had apparently done _something_ right to gain Sammy’s affection and wasn’t _that_ a surprise? 

Winchester was at the very least bisexual, maybe even gay. And how good was this?! If Brady even tried to set Sam up with someone else, it would be an uphill battle while Sam still apparently liked him, but this was still a great development.

All he had to do was go back and encourage Sam’s affections, lock him down, and manipulate him back towards hunting over time. Brady’s keen mind was already applying itself to mapping out this new plan as he doubled down on his resolve to do it this new way. 

With a confident and smooth stride that the previous Brady could never have matched, the demon turned on his heel and retraced his way back to campus. With any luck, Sam would still be awake and willing to forgive Brady for the outburst earlier. 

Brady easily picked his way back to the dorm rooms the same way the human who used to be in his body would have, the body’s memories and his own stalker tendencies making him more than familiar with the route. With how late it was at night and the relative unpopularity of the district he was in, there were no disruptions in his trip back. 

He arrived to the dorms barely over an hour after the previous Brady had left. Now, Brady had never tried to enter the dorms when he was doing his stalking thing, but he knew he could if he wanted to. Sam Winchester was trying to distance himself from Hunting and pretending it didn’t exist so there was no real way that the boy would set up anything to keep demons out. 

He’d not wanted to draw unwanted attention to himself before, but he now strode through the doors to the large building without a care in the world. His meat suit’s memories drove him higher and higher up the stairs, around corners, and down hallways until he finally came to the door number he knew was his.  
  


His new home. And, if his good luck held, his Sam. 

Brady knocked quickly on the door, just to be polite, and headed into the room without pausing a second. Closing the door quietly behind him, the demon surveyed the room. Looking around the room he’s deposited into while closing the door behind him with a quiet _snick_ , Brady is met with an empty room. 

_Wonder if he left?_ Brady thought, looking around for a second before his demonic hearing picked up the light sound of a shower running off to the side. _Or that._

Moving further into the room, Brady took a look around his new home. The place was small, very small, but Brady had been in dorm rooms that had far less before and this one had a small kitchenette in addition to the bathroom. 

The bedroom, living room, and kitchenette are all one room with only little divots in the walls making a feeble attempt at separating them into mock rooms. There were two beds with a small end table between them, a beanbag on the floor in front of a small TV, and various other bric a brac around it. One of the beds was made, the other wasn’t. 

Brady knew from the memories that the bed that wasn’t made was his, just like the beanbag on the floor was his. 

Anyway, the kitchenette had a cheap stove, an equally old coffee machine, a mini fridge, and a short counter top. Brady didn’t need the memories to know from looking at it that the kitchenette had never been touched. It was the first thing he couldn’t blame his counterpart for; this kitchen would be a nightmare for anyone who didn’t absolutely _love_ cooking enough to fight through it. 

The shower stopped running. 

Brady pulled himself back from matching the environment to his memories and headed for a corner of the room near the bathroom. He had something he needed to do now. Normally, he liked the more businessy way of dealing with things. Every now and then, though, his demonic nature preferred to be a bit more animalistic in its approach. 

Not a minute later, Sam exited out of the bathroom still a little wet and with a towel wrapped around his waist. Brady waited until the boy unthinkingly passed by the corner he was standing in, then . . . “Sam!” 

Sam whirled around to face Brady just in time to see the demon launch himself at the teenager and take them both down to the floor. The demon made sure that the taller man didn’t hit his head on the landing even while the rest of his gargantuan body made a harsh thump. 

Before the student had time to react, Brady had taken the younger boy’s hands and pinned them to the floor beside his head and began feverishly pressing their lips together. Hey, Brady might not be feeling anything romantic for Sam, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t horny or that the other guy wasn’t sexy looking. All pretty and doe-like. 

The demon felt the human struggle weakly to free his hands but Brady judged it to be two things: 1) Easy to overpower even for someone of his size even if Brady wasn’t a demon, and 2) Lacked the force to suggest Sam actually wanted to get free. 

So Brady didn’t let go. 

The demon was using his body weight to pin the rest of the ex-hunter’s body to the floor. Sam was much larger than Brady and the man had an (albeit unwilling) background in hunting so Brady was definitely using some of his demonic strength to pin the brunette down, but was careful to not use more than what was out of the realm of possibility for a human of his size. 

He didn’t need to send up any red flags to the ex-hunter.

Keeping his grip steady and the hands pinned by Sam’s head, the demon drew back from the deep kiss he had engaged them in. 

“Heh--what--” Sam breathed out breathlessly, seemingly through sheer strength of will. Brady didn't give him much time to recover, proceeding to lay short, hot kisses on the brunette’s mouth. _Again_ and _again_ . They didn’t involve tongue, but they were still _good_. 

In-between the hot kisses, Sam managed to get some coherent thoughts out. “B-Brady--” _Kiss_ . “Wait--I--” _Kiss_ . “What--What--” _Kiss_. “What're you doing?” 

“Kissing you.” Brady chose to answer as a mutter inches from Sam’s face before going in for more small kisses. 

“W-Why?” _Kiss_ . “Though?” _Kiss_ . “I-I thought--” “--You--You didn’t want--” _Kiss_. 

“Stupid.” Brady chose to answer again, face hovering so close to Sam’s that he was sure the other man could feel his breath on his lips. “What I did before was stupid. Stupid. Foolish. Shortsighted. I was too busy thinking about myself to see the gift that was being presented right in front of me.” Sam Winchester’s eyes widened at the words. 

The demon couldn’t stop his eyes from widening at the sight of tears rising in the brown eyes beneath him, one of them spilling over the lids and tracking down his cheek. _Wow_ , he hadn’t expected the boy to react so strongly to having his feelings reciprocated. 

_Old Brady really broke his heart, didn’t he?_

Brady lifted one of his hands carefully away from Sam’s. Sam’s hand stayed where it was pressed against the floor as if Brady’s hand was still pinning it down. That was rather attractive, actually. 

Brady lifted his hand to the younger boy’s cheek to wipe away the tear, his own eyes mesmerized by the sight. He wasn’t used to making hunters cry that way. 

“Are you being serious?” Sam breathed out, his eyes just as enraptured by the man in front of him as Brady’s was. “This isn’t a--a joke or . . . something?” The fragility from Brady’s memory of earlier that night was back and it was a _lot_. 

Maybe he could understand his predecessor a little more. For a flighty teenager who wasn’t gay and had never had anything seriously expected of him in his life, having those big brown eyes looking at him with such pleading, such _need_ , was probably way too much. 

The demon, on the other hand, _thrived_ on it. _Fed_ on it. Wanted to suck it up and inject it like the addictive drug that it was. “Not a joke.” Brady murmured. “Let’s do this, you and me.” 

Sam was quiet for a moment, his eyes looking even more shocked, if that were even possible. “Sex?” He asked, looking at Brady like he didn’t know what to expect from him next. 

“Sex. Dating. All of it, let’s do it.” Brady slipped his hand, still wet with tears, behind Sam’s head and brought the other man’s face up to share another long and deep kiss. 

“Brady . . .” Sam breathed out when they separated, his eyes looking fuzzy as he gazed at the other man. Seems Samuel’s brain has gone offline. He’d take the opportunity it presented. 

“Just say yes.” Brady instructed him lightly, pressing strong kisses to the boy’s cheeks as he waited for his answer. 

“Yeah.” Sam breathed, his eyes resting closed. It gave him an almost peaceful expression that Brady had to stop himself from marveling out. 

He’d all but gotten the go-ahead for sex, he wanted to tie the boy to him, and he was pent-up as Hell. There was only one place for this to go. He couldn’t fail here. He didn’t want to fail here. “I’ll make you feel so good if you just let me.” Brady whispered breathily into Sam’s ear as he bit the man’s earlobe. 

Sam’s head lolled to the side, eyes still closed as Sam let out a shaky breath. Then a slight nod, one he might have missed if he hadn’t been looking. The demon smiled slyly, ready to let loose, and leaned down to sensually bite at the neck being exposed to him. 

Sam was his now and this night would prove it.


	2. Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brady takes his first step towards his new plan.

Brady woke up to a scene that he really could not have predicted yesterday. It was so unexpected that he couldn’t help finding humor in the whole thing, his black as coal sense of humor notwithstanding. 

He and Sam had had some amazing sex that night/morning. 

Sammy, being the virgin he was, had been completely out of it afterwards and having gone a now uncomfortable time without sex himself, Brady was not actually that much better. But they did manage to crawl off of the floor and into one of the beds together . . . although he’s not sure which one. 

The beds were very small, that was to be expected. Each was only able to  _ comfortably _ fit someone a few inches shorter than Brady. The human in the body before him hadn’t paid any attention at all to Sam’s comfort or discomfort, so the demon had no memories to draw on for reference, but it seemed to him that there was no way Sam’s feet didn’t hang off the end of his bed every night. 

Even without him laying in it slightly lower, resting his head on Brady’s chest the way he was now. 

The demon felt a smug smile tugging on the edge of his lips. Even addled as his brain was after their fun, he’d still thought it was important for him and Sam to share a bed for the night, ignoring how small they were. It was all part of the plan and Brady wasn’t too territorial, anyway. He didn’t mind sharing. 

Now, Brady didn’t think he would, but there was always the chance that Sam would wake up in the morning and try to distance himself from what had happened between them. He was aware that he’d been very forceful when he returned to the dorm, even if he’d only given Sam what they both wanted. 

Having Sam wake up next to him would ensure that any emotional distance after the event would be lost. He’d wake up in Brady’s arms and he would make sure they were the warmest, coziest trap the boy had ever been caught in. 

He wouldn't want to leave. 

Waking up well ahead of Sam gave Brady time to get together some semblance of a plan beyond what he had thought of last night. If he was being honest with himself, he’d not thought this plan out completely before embarking on it, but he didn’t think there was a jury in the world that would convict him over it. 

It was a prime opportunity, one in a million! But it did come with no warning and he’d wanted to snap it up before he lost the chance. Now though, he really needed to think about how he was going to proceed from here. 

He’d apparently secured his chance with Sam and once the boy woke up, he would definitely lock the hunter down as his boyfriend, but that was only the simplest step of his task. The job given to him when he was sent here was to get Samuel Winchester back into hunting by any means necessary. 

It’d been heavily implied by Azazel that maybe a reproduction of what happened to Sammy’s mom would be the most expedient way to do this. And the most fun. 

So Brady had come to the college area and stalked Sam at a distance, learning that he didn’t have a significant other to use as a firestarter, and deciding that he would have to possess someone close to Sam to have the trust that would be needed to introduce him to someone. Hence the “Brady” idea was born. 

His end goal was still the same, he needed to get Sam back into hunting. From his new vantage point  _ as _ Sam’s significant other, he needed to figure out what did change. Did he need to fake his own death to give Sam a reason to go back to hunting? Was that a viable option? 

It would probably accomplish that while also absolving Brady of boyfriend duty, but came with the annoyance of having to find another meat suit when it came time. Maybe coming out as a demon, then? It would probably make Sammy angry enough to go back into hunting, especially if he escaped, forcing Sam to go on a rage-fueled vendetta. Starting to sound like an action movie, here. 

Either way, he would probably have to play the long game in order to mean that much to Sam, not that sleeping together wasn’t a great start. Because it definitely was. 

He’d have to put up with the everyday college student’s life and pretend to be human unless he wanted to go wild and drop out, but Sam probably wouldn’t allow that and he’d try relentlessly to get him back on the straight and narrow by . . . influencing . . . him . . .

An idea. Yes, an idea! 

Screw faking his own death and screw coming out as the demonic embodiment of evil that he was! None of those would  _ guarantee  _ Sam’s reemergence into the hunting world like this would!

He’d influence Sam! Not with his death or his betrayal, but  _ really _ influence him.  _ And  _ it would save Brady some of the headache of college student life and, mostly annoyingly, having to put up with the moronic decisions the human Brady had made. 

He’d slowly introduce the supernatural back into Sam’s life, making it seem more appealing than the elder Winchesters ever could have (with their caustic natures). Maybe start out by framing it as a pet project of his or something and if what he’d seen from human partners in the past, Sam would be all but forced to pay some attention to his boyfriend’s hobby. 

Especially if he wanted Brady to be safe about it. Brady thrived in the realm of emotional blackmail. 

He could just see it now! As long as he didn’t screw anything up, it would be perfect. Now, how did he start this? Well, it was a major step (no more so than the passing thought he’d had about dropping out of school entirely), but the best place he could think of to start was in changing his degree. 

Maybe not so coincidentally, Brady’s current degree was also the thing he was dreading most about college life. He’d been to school more times than he could really count. Sometimes he completed the schooling, other times he ducked out when he felt like it. But there was one thing he’d had plenty of study in during these times. Business. 

He’d completed multiple degrees in business in multiple bodies and had several more lessons towards degrees he’d never finished. He was good at business; a general manager type, as far as demons go. To a certain degree, he even _ liked _ business, but business classes in college were the most boring things he’d experienced in his whole existence and like _ Hell _ he wanted a repeat of that. 

So Brady’s Business Administration degree would have to go. Straight out the window. And from there, he would grow his visible interest in the supernatural until Sam could no longer look away and pretend it doesn’t exist. 

A deep, sleepy mumble and shuffling on his chest alerted Brady to the fact that Sam was waking up. Well, he had the next step of his plan now and he’d have to work on the rest later. He’d greet his boyfriend with a smile. 

Sammy’s relaxed face twitched repeatedly and his eyelashes fluttered before lifting slightly to let light brown eyes peek out from behind them. As soon as he saw those baby browns, Brady let a small smile full of warmth slither across his face like a snake. 

“Good morning, Sammy.” He said softly, maybe purred. 

Sam’s blurry brown eyes peered up at Brady from his chest. The boy’s eyebrows furrowed for a second at the nickname before smoothing out again as he slowly smiled back at him. “Mornin’, ‘ady.” Sam mumbled, near unintelligibly in his groggy morning haze. 

Well, that was just cute. No demon in the world could argue against its cuteness. 

“Morning.” Brady said again, for good measure. “How did you sleep?”

“Good.” Sam moaned out, leaning up off of his chest to give a good stretch. He sounded more awake now. “Really good. How’d you sleep?” 

“Good.” The lie rolled off Brady’s tongue with practiced ease, not a hint of hesitation in its delivery. It wasn’t exactly a lie, though. Brady had slept like the dead, because it was the only way a demon _ could _ sleep. 

Naturally, a demon was a most unnatural thing and while the body they inhabited was alive,  _ they  _ were dead. They could keep a body going without anything to fuel it except their demonic power, even if it would then die the second they vacated it. He didn’t need to eat, he didn’t need to sleep, and he could survive every STD known to man. 

Demons would raise far more suspicions when possessing their hosts, though, if they couldn’t do those things. It was bad enough that they couldn’t touch crosses or enter churches, if they couldn’t ingest human food or at least give off the _ appearance _ of sleeping, then even non-hunters would pose a risk. 

So saying, even without his demonic stamina, he hadn’t needed to sleep last night, but for Sam’s benefit he had basically “turned himself off” for the night. Brady wasn’t so sure how it worked, but he knew it was how he and other demons got through sharing their nights with humans without having to lay stock still for nine hours. He would more or less black out at that point. 

Turning himself back on was an imprecise process that could happen at any point after an hour of being shut off. “What time is it?” Sam asked, the slurring almost completely gone from his voice now. 

Brady craned his neck to look at the alarm clock right beside him. Huh, guess they were in Sam’s bed. “9:30.” He answered calmly. A second ticked by. 

“What?” Sam cried out, jolting into motion and practically ripping himself out of his arms. Brady let him. 

Sam scuttled across the floor on all fours to his backpack. Brady nearly burst out laughing at the sight, but managed to hold it back by the skin of his teeth as Sam went rifling through it hurriedly like he was looking for his insulin before managing to stumble up to his feet and sling it over his shoulder. 

“Are you going?” Brady asked mildly, lolling his head over lazily to watch the hunter. Sam shot him a look at the question that just about screamed “ _ What else would I do, you jerk!”.  _ A look that would have been far more angry if it wasn’t for the fact that the boy was still obviously flustered. 

“Of course, I’m going!” Sam unnecessarily verbalized the sentiment, something that Brady thought was adorable. Like a little kid. “Since you didn’t wake me up, I’m now late for my classes for the first time ever! I haven’t sent word to my professors! They’re going to be pissed!” 

Well,  _ he  _ certainly sounded pissed. “I’d recommend you take a shower first.” Brady stated in a relaxed manner, watching his boyfriend  _ go _ . 

“Why!” Sam snapped, glancing over at him irritably. 

“Because you’re naked right now and you reek of sex. Also, we didn’t clean up last night.” The demon explained, an amused quirk to his lips. 

Samuel froze when he was told he was still naked, suddenly feeling the lack of clothing and the unobstructed rubbing of the backpack against his shoulder. His eyebrows scrunched when Brady mentioned something about not cleaning up and it dared him to look down at his body. 

He saw Brady’s dried seed. He tore off into their dorm bathroom with the backpack still on his back. The sounds of the bathroom door slamming and the shower running filled the small dorm. Brady chuckled. He waited calmly on the bed until Sam got out of the shower, looking much better now that he wasn’t exhausted and covered in dried come. 

Still naked, though. 

“Don’t forget to put on clothes!” Brady called out to his boyfriend helpfully before he got the chance to even start towards the closet. What he got in return was a truly disgruntled look from Sam. “What? I’m helping!” Brady continued with a lightly mocking smile. 

“I’m  _ not _ going to forget to wear clothes to class.” Sam shot back, stomping towards the closet. 

“Well, you certainly had me fooled because it definitely looked like you were going to do that a few minutes ago.” The demon smugly reminded him, leaning back in Sam’s bed for effect. Sam suddenly found the closet fascinating as he rifled through it desperately, choosing not to respond to Brady’s tease. 

Honestly, this was going to be more fun than he had been expecting and Brady had already been prepared for some good entertainment from this mission. Besides being both hot and adorable, the hunter was also good for a laugh . . . the demon had never seen someone unknowingly try to run out of their “house” buck naked before!

Dear Lord, Little Sammy, how you have grown! 

Sam yanked a seemingly random pair of shirts and jeans from the closet and slapped them on. I’m going to class now!” Sam announced, stumbling towards the door. 

“Sam, wait.” Brady called, sliding off the bed. 

“Yeah?” Sam looked back at him, appearing like he was keeping himself from passing through the threshold incredibly reluctantly. 

“Your backpack?” Brady reminded lightly, hiding his smirk. 

“AH!” Sam bolted to the bathroom and doubled back a second later with his bag in his hand. “ _ Now _ I’m leaving.” He stated, sounding much calmer compared to his previous antics. He went back to the front door. 

“Wait.” Brady called again, taking no small amount of pleasure in all this as he went over to stand next to his boyfriend. 

“What now?” Sam cried in exasperation with a whine as he turned around to face him. Taking the boy by surprise, Brady quickly leaned forward and gave him a deep kiss on the lips. 

The hunter let out a muffled squeak as the demon’s tongue cut into his mouth and started roaming around with his hands gripping tightly onto Sam’s forearms, forcing his arms to stay at his side. Seconds after it started, he ended it and pulled back, leaving Sam panting. 

“Now you can go.” Brady said. Sam just stood there staring at him, open mouthed and wide eyed. “What? Can I not kiss my boyfriend goodbye in the morning?” He teased. Sam’s mouth snapped shut in response to the question. His eyes were still wide, though. 

“Uh-um-bye!” Sam mumbled hurriedly. He pulled open the door and threw himself out of it, stumbling as he pulled it shut behind him. 

The boy had looked so shocked and nervous! It really was quite the sight since he isn’t used to seeing hunters like _ that _ . 

“Bye!” Brady surprisingly heard a second call of the word through the door, followed by the sound of stumbling down the hall. Brady let out an uncontrollable chuckle at that. 

Yeah, this was going to be  _ fun _ . 

\------------------

Three hours later, Brady was picking his way through a hallway bustling with young college students towards the Admissions Office. He abhors waiting around and now that he’s got ideas for a plan that’s already in motion, he wants to get on with it!   
  


The demon wove around his new classmates with ease and a slight amount of disdain. 

While he wasn’t one of those that only felt disgust towards all humans, he really did feel some revulsion towards the general traits of incompetence and smallmindedness. Young humans - particularly those in their late teens and early twenties - tended to have these traits in larger quantities than the rest of the population. 

For all of their excitement and zeal, they’re still stuck in their own little bubbles thinking they know everything.

Thinking they’re invincible. It made them his favorite to possess, so that he could take that baseless sense of immunity or superiority and tear it to shreds. 

Human Brady was a laidback socialite, which made him popular on campus and so he was waylaid several times en route by other students greeting him and wanting to say  _ hi _ . It was a damn good thing he was a businessman, otherwise he definitely would’ve snapped at one of them. 

If he did and whoever it was held a grudge about it, that would be . . . irritating. 

Maybe he should have gone on his walk a little earlier or later so that classes wouldn’t have just ended by the time he got out of the dorm area, but their dorm was pleasant when it was quiet and he wanted to enjoy that before heading out for the day. 

In fifteen or so minutes, the next block of classes would start up again and he’d get some relative peace. Until then . . . Brady came to his school’s Admissions Office. With the ease of a salesman, he slid into the air conditioned office space and stood expectantly at the front desk. It didn’t take the woman sitting behind it more than a few seconds to notice he was there and look up. 

Brady took an immediate and very strong dislike to the woman. He couldn’t say what it was exactly, but there was something snivelling and brown-nosing about her character that was visible through her appearance. 

“Oh! Mr. Brady, what a surprise to see you here! I didn’t think I’d see you again until next semester.” Did he know this woman? “You know it’s only been a little over a week since this one’s started!” She continued in her simpering voice, a baleful look flashed in her eyes for a moment. 

He hated her. The smarmy grin was too much. Brady made sure to keep it out of his voice. “It’s nice to see you, as well. I’m here to change my target degree and drop my current classes.” He gave it straight. 

The woman smiled gaily when he gave his niceties, but her reaction to his reason for being there was immediate. The look of shock she had on her face as she half stood up from her chair was infuriating. “What.” She breathed out, not a whisper but not a yell. Seriously, he hated everything about this bitch. 

“You can’t do that, Sir!” She insisted quickly. “It’s too late!” What a load of . . . 

“It’s only been a week since classes were started. I can still sign up for classes, so I should be able to change my degree.” And the fact that he knew from his many years of experience with previous colleges that there was never a time during the school year that you  _ couldn’t  _ change your degree was also a factor. 

“Well yes . . . but classes have already started!”  _ Tell me something I don’t know _ . “Surely you wouldn’t want to drop the classes you already started for ones you’d be behind in.”  _ Clearly he did, since that’s what he just said he wanted.  _

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” He fixed the smile on his face. “It’s what I want.” 

“Be that as it may, classes have already started and you might change your mind. It would be best to see the semester through and take that time to think about it. Besides, Business Management is a wonderful, versatile degree. Your father--” The demon’s smile froze on his face. 

Alright, that was enough of this. 

“Look, my dad doesn’t have anything to do with this, this is  _ my _ degree. I want to change it now and sign up for new classes and you’re going to do it for me.” He spoke firmly, letting the nosy woman know what was going to happen. 

He knew how she would react to it; people like her were suck-ups, they had no spines. “Of-Of course. I’d--I’d be happy to do that.” The woman reluctantly breathed out, eyes wide at him. She positioned her fingers on the keyboard of her computer, ready to type. “What new degree were you thinking of?” 

Brady casually leaned his elbows against the desk. 

“I don’t know. I was just thinking I wanted something a bit more . . . _ supernatural. _ ” 


	3. First Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brady breaks the news to Sam.

The woman could not have looked more like she was going to piss herself. “Supernatural...? As in, mythology?” Maybe Brady was being a bit dramatic, but it seemed to him that she was wishing for some pearls to clutch. 

She looked lightheaded, as if the apocalypse was happening.  _ Not yet, bitch.  _

He wasn’t completely devoid of understanding for her, though. While he doubted everyone at Harvard thought so shallowly, the supernatural did have a certain stigma to it. Not only did the average human consider the possible existence of inhuman creatures to be a bunch of BS, but the careers that dealt with the study of these creatures (in general) didn’t carry much in the way of prestige. 

Even the people who had a higher education in related fields didn’t often believe in the existence of mythical creatures but instead concerned themselves with how the belief in these creatures impacted human culture. Paranormal investigators were the only people Brady could think of off the top of his head that built their careers around trying to prove the existence of the things they studied. 

While the study of world mythologies is a fine career path in and of itself, albeit not much to brag about, someone giving up something like a Business Management degree for it in a school like Harvard would be an understandably shocking event. Given who Tyson Brady or (more to the point) his father was, he imagined it would get blown out of proportion. 

Good thing not being human meant he didn’t need to care. “Yes, something in mythology sounds  _ perfect _ .” He responded with a shark-like grin. 

And the school was sure to have something like that; arts and folklore were big things in any culture, a good college wouldn’t be allowed to miss it!

With a look of utmost reluctance on her face, the desk assistant began to type something into the computer and after some waiting, she looked back up at him again. “We have a Folklore & Mythology degree.” She stated, looking like she wanted to pull the words back the moment she spoke them. 

Brady grinned delightedly, making sure to show off all of his meat suit’s perfect teeth. “Great. Let’s do that, then.” 

Like a dam had broken, she was up and leaning over the desk towards him desperately. “Please reconsider! You’re just a child, you can’t possibly be ready to think through all of the ramifications of this . . . think what it would do to your future! Think what it could do to your  _ father! _ I really must insist that you--” 

_ Alright. That’s it.  _

“It’s none of your business what I do with my schooling. Your job is to do what I want, not what you think I should do and it is none of my father’s business, either. It’s my degree, not his. Now would you _ please  _ switch my degree and change all my current classes?” 

The woman sat there gaping at him, looking well and truly shut up as she sat back down. In seconds she had started clicking around on the computer, shooting the occasional glance back up at him as he waited. Brady was feeling impatient at this point, wanting nothing more than to be out of there, but he knew better than to let any of that show outwardly. 

Instead, he chose to distract himself with thoughts of planning a date for him and his boyfriend that evening. Sam would probably have a lot of schoolwork when he got back to their dorm, but he could probably manage to pull Sam out for a date anyway. 

“Alright, your degree has officially been changed, though it may take a few days to process.” The woman stated. She seemed to have realized the futility of trying to talk him out of it and was trying to scrape up some semblance of professionalism. She seemed to want him and his father to think highly of her, so maybe that was it. “Now we can move onto dropping any classes you wish and signing up for whatever classes are still open.” 

’”All of them.” Brady stated decisively without missing a beat. “I want to drop all of them.” 

He reveled in the almost physical pain this gave the woman. 

At least this part would be fun. 

\------------------

Sam had barely entered his dorm room before being whisked away by Brady for a “small date”, as he said. 

The man had clearly been waiting for him to come back. The teen had tried to tell his roommate that he was tired and busy and had work to do, but the other man wasn’t having it. Shortly after returning, Sam’s books and his bag were left on the floor by the door and both boys were heading out for their “date”. 

Sam griped both internally and externally on their way out as he mourned the fact that Brady could always talk Sam into doing even the stupidest shit. 

Not that going on their first ever date was stupid or anything! . . . But he had homework and school that day and the next and he was exhausted! The responsible thing to do would be to stay in his dorm, do some work, and then call it a night. 

However, for some inexplicable reason, responsibility always went straight out the window when Brady entered the room. In fact, it practically let out a screech of terror and vaulted out said window. What the man wanted he would get, especially if he wanted it from Sam. 

He’s honestly surprised he still bothers to argue with him. 

“Here we are.” Brady announced at last. The law student snapped out of his thought swirl and actually looked at where Brady had been leading him. It was a restaurant . . . not sure why he was kind of surprised by that. 

_ I mean, I’m not sure what I was expecting… He _ wondered at himself  _ to _ himself. 

It was actually a pretty nice one, though he got the feeling it wasn’t one of the higher end places that Brady’s family would probably frequent. It was certainly better than what most college students could afford when choosing to eat out and laughably better than anything his father and brother would have even thought about going to. Sam quickly shoved away the thought as a familiar feeling of bitterness set in at the thought of his family. 

“Well, we going in? C’mon, we’re burning daylight!” Brady chirped excitedly and proceeded to start tugging Sam to the entrance, with Sam laughing at his antics. 

How could he not laugh at that? Sometimes the man was such a child, but in the best way. Snickering for the first time that day, Sam let Brady lead him by the hand into the restaurant despite the embarrassment he felt at doing so. 

The following few minutes were uneventful compared to the rest of the date. The two men were taken to their table and both looked over their menus before making their orders. 

Then they were left alone to talk, the feature of their date that was the most important but also the most concerning. 

Sam had been preparing himself for the long, awkward silence that he’d heard were common on first dates. After all, he’d never been on a date, but even people who knew each other didn’t always know what to talk about with each other the first time out, right? 

Well apparently, Brady was deciding to be even cooler than he already was. Not a second of awkwardness was allowed to set in before Brady had taken the initiative to ask Sam about his day. “I know you said you were tired.” Brady said leadingly at the end. 

Sam coughed, choking on the water he was drinking in surprise, much to his date’s very visible amusement. _ Jerk _ , Sam thought with some undeniable fondness. 

If Sam hadn’t known any better (and he swore to himself that he  _ did _ ), he’d think the other man had planned it that way too. Except that would be ridiculous. It’s not even like the request was anything strange, it was a pretty standard question to ask in the realm of small talk. 

What the thing was was that Brady had never _ ever  _ asked him that before. In the semester that they had been living together so far, he had not once expressed a genuine interest in how Sam’s days had gone or what he’d been doing with them. 

Realizing jerkily that he was overthinking it and Brady was smirking at him for it, he started to describe his day to his date. At first, he tried to breeze through what happened in most of the classes and social interactions as quickly as he could, but somewhere along the way he looked up at Brady’s face to see that the man was really  _ actually  _ paying attention to what he was saying. 

He experimentally started to give more detail and watched as he did so to see if Brady lost interest. The other man never appeared to. If anything, his interest only increased. Before long, Sam had all but spilled his guts about his day and felt emotionally lighter than he had since waking up that morning. Maybe longer. 

Brady, for his part, had asked a few questions here or there but was mostly content to let Sam go on. He only realized how much of their time he'd monopolized talking about himself when their food arrived at their table. Sam hastened to ask Brady how the man’s own day went. 

He really hadn’t expected what he’d be told next, but truthfully? When had he ever known what to expect from him? 

It started out entertaining enough with Brady saying how he stayed lounging in their room for hours after Sam had left, winking at the end of it and saying how drunk he’d felt the morning after their night together. Through his embarrassed fidgeting, Sam felt a flash of concern for his date hearing that Brady apparently hadn’t gone to some or maybe all of his classes that day. 

Since Sam had already been late to his own first class of the day when he’d first woken up and Brady had still made no move to get ready by the time Sam had left, he’d assumed Brady would miss his first class entirely. He just hadn’t thought the other man would proceed to further blow off all of his classes that day. 

He only felt the short flash of concern, though, before pushing it away easily enough. It  _ was  _ Brady, after all. While it would be the first time he’d chosen to take an entire day long siesta from school, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d done something like this and so it didn’t worry him too much. 

The real worry would come very soon. 

Brady went on to regale him with the story of his outing around noon to go and visit what he “charitably” referred to as the “desk witch”. Apparently, when he was feeling less charitable, he straight up called her the “office bitch”. 

Evidently, Brady had gone to the school Admissions Office for reasons that he hadn’t yet told Sam (“Patience, Sammy, patience”) and he didn’t really like the woman who'd helped him. She was a “slimy feeling woman who needed to mind her own business; Brady’s words, not his. 

That’s when his . . . boyfriend? . . . dropped the bomb. “I mean, what business is it of hers if I switched out my degree? She’s not a counselor who’s there to give unwanted advice or attempt to control other legal adults!” Brady had seethed while keeping his eyes carefully on his date as he said it and while Sam thought he was being a little too harsh on the woman, he could at least nod and agree that--wait.  _ What? _

“What?” Sam coughed out, his brain screeching to an absolute halt. Did he just . . . did he just hear what he thought he heard? “Brady? What was that?” 

He held his breath. He couldn’t think of any real reason why Brady would be unhappy with his degree, he’d never said anything to really indicate he hated it that much or really felt much about it at all and if there was anything Brady bad always liked, it was talking. It was a left turn that didn’t make any sense!

“I said I changed my target degree today.” Brady responded, watching him knowingly. Clearly, he could tell Sam was getting upset and why that was. He just didn't seem to care. 

“Why did you do that?” Sam had to muster up some kind of calm to ask this. And he did because okay, this sounded bad and not really well thought out at all, but it was probably an overreaction to go off the wall about it. Maybe he had a good reason for--

Brady relaxed back in his seat. “Oh, I just decided I was bored of it and needed a change. Business is really a pretty boring route to take when you think about it.” That was not a good reason. 

“And . . . what did you change it to?” If Sam were to give into his more dramatic side, he might have thought shock was setting in. In a way, it certainly felt like he was in shock while struggling to process the possible crisis that was just dropped into his lap. 

Distantly, he knew it probably wasn’t a good idea to tell Brady that he could still change it back and pretend this lapse in judgement had never happened, given his reaction to the woman from the office who had done basically the same thing. Instead, maybe he could find out if Brady had at least changed it to a related degree so that all of the classes he’d taken last semester and signed up for this one wouldn’t be for nothing. 

“It’s Folklore & Mythology! How cool is that??” Sam couldn’t breath. This was a minor disaster, what was Brady  _ thinking _ ? 

And why Folklore, of all things? It reminded him so uncomfortably of the life he had left behind to come to college in the first place, that he had to clench his right hand into a tight fist to calm himself down. Things had been going so well for him here and now the supernatural seemed to be following him. Like it was taunting him. 

“Hey.” A hand was placed firmly over Sam’s on the table and the brunette’s head jerked up to meet the eyes of his date. The cause of his turmoil was actually looking strangely serious now compared to a few moments ago. “I don’t know what you’re worrying about, but stop it. It’s no big deal, it’s not like I’m quitting college or anything, I’m just doing some of that experimenting stuff.”

He said all this so gently that it reminded Sam of that morning when he’d woken up in the other man’s arms. Sam unconsciously relaxed under the firm touch and soft words. 

But still . . . “Brady, your old degree could have gotten you a job anywhere. Why would you want to give it up to study Nightcrawlers?”

“Know something about folklore, do you?” Brady smirked, causing Sam to shyly fidget again. “I did it because I wanted something different in my life than what I was getting. I decided last night that I wanted to overhaul my life to get rid of the lingering feeling of oppression that I’ve been putting up with for I-don’t-know-how-long now. Haven’t you ever felt like that?”

Sam glanced away guiltily. He knew exactly what that felt like. 

Brady squeezed Sam’s hand again in a gesture of comfort that was very much appreciated. “My mind is what’ll get me a job most places, not my degree. Besides,” Here he gave Sam a secretive and sly smile that reminded him heavily of the Mona Lisa. 

  
  
  


“Who knows? This undergrad might be able to open some doors of it’s own.” 


	4. Classes and Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys need to deal with (and sometimes ignore) other people making nuisances out of themselves.

Sam sat in his last class of the day and tried desperately to pay attention. 

He found some of these rules and regulations interesting, but for the most part they were so boring and tedious. Maybe part of the fault for that rested on his professor’s shoulders. It seemed like every teacher he had either just wanted to read straight from the book or didn’t know how to make what was in the book any more interesting. There was at least one really good teacher his first semester in college, but he’d still had to learn pretty quickly how to manage his own learning himself. 

Sam caught an alert popping up on his phone out of the corner of his eye. His phone was on silent, but the phone wasn’t off. He immediately saw that it was a text from Brady, his contact on Sam’s phone having both his boyfriend’s name and his photo attached to it. He was just letting Sam know that he was waiting for him in their dorm so they could get to the studying when he got back.

It’d been three weeks since his first date with Brady and things had more or less settled down since then. Surprisingly. 

If Sam had thought the tornado that was the beginning of their relationship was going to set the tone for the foreseeable future, then he would’ve been freaking wrong. It seemed like, for once, Brady seemed to pay attention to his emotions and modified his action accordingly. 

He still teased Sam and interrupted his activities to make him do things he’d rather not, but mostly it was for them to hang out and not going to parties like it had usually been before. Before Brady had always wanted to get trashed or go to parties off-campus and Sam had only been able to swat him away half the time. Ever since Sam had confessed his feelings to his roommate, the other man had been acting weird. Not like a different person exactly, but like a deeper version of himself that the Winchester hadn’t even known had existed. 

Brady had always slept around with a bunch of girls as long as Sam had known him, never any guys, but Sam had never gotten any indication from any of the glimpses of the other man’s romantic entanglements that he was: a) monogamous, or b) physically affectionate. Besides the frequent throwing of his hand over some girl’s shoulder and pressing his body up against hers, he honestly didn’t seem to like touching people all that much. 

Upon their new relationship status, however, Sam was immediately confronted with just how wrong he was about that. Brady was continually kissing and touching him all the time when they were together. It started out bold, just the way things always did with Brady. He would grab Sam’s hand, tangle their fingers together, and sometimes even start caressing the back of the taller man’s hand. 

Their sleeping arrangements also changed. Or rather, they hadn’t changed since the first and last night they slept together. Despite having two beds, they continued to fall asleep in the same one, with Brady either slipping into whichever bed Sam was in when it got late or beckoning Sam towards his own. Sam had been nervous as hell about it at the beginning - he'd never had a relationship like this with anyone before - but couldn’t bring himself to say a word against it. So even though they hadn’t had sex since that first time, they continued to go to sleep together and wake up every morning in each other’s arms. 

This had definitely not been what Sam was expecting when he confessed his feelings to Brady all those weeks ago. In fact, Sam had a hard time figuring out what he liked about Brady to begin with before he’d got it up to confess to the man. Brady was an  _ annoyance _ , to say the least. He was opinionated and loud-mouthed and to top that off, he didn’t really concern himself with how anyone else felt at all. 

Maybe Sam decided that that sounded really familiar to his home life before leaving. 

There were some things he did like about Brady and they would end up sticking in his mind until that fateful night when he decided to nervously take the plunge. 

Brady was observant. Despite having an intentional blindspot when it came to anyone else’s feelings or problems, he noticed things in the world that Sam didn’t. He had unique ways of looking at problems or tasks that made Sam feel like a partially blind man seeing clearly for the first time. He was certainly an asset when he chose to be, in regards to Sam’s coursework. 

He also brought a bit of fun into Sam’s life that was, as it always had been, very carefully restrained and regulated. Even if Sam didn’t really enjoy the parties himself or Brady’s unwarranted attempts to hook him up with random women, Sam could acknowledge the relief he felt when Brady forced him to step away from his work and take one more lonely night off his calendar. 

There was also, of course, a good amount of physical attraction to tie it all up in a big red bow. Sam kept quiet about this for a while as the feeling refused to leave him, bothering him and making him feel like a creep for harboring secret romantic feelings for his friend and roommate. Finally, he’d had no choice but to admit to himself that admitting his feelings to Brady might be the lesser of two evils. He didn’t really think that Brady was going to return his feelings or even be cool with them, but what else could he do? And who knows? Maybe Brady would surprise him...

He did, but not immediately. 

Brady’s first reaction was the absolute worst of what Sam had expected. Brady had freaked and stormed out of the apartment in the middle of the night. Trying to remember back, Sam thought he might have been crying when Brady left. He’d thought that was it. 

The things Brady had said to him, the way he’d reacted...what else was there? Sam had resigned himself to an excruciating rest of his schooling. Resigned himself to awkward and maybe even aggressive encounters with his former friend for the rest of their time together...Brady could even demand he petition to change dorm rooms or do it himself. Brady had sounded really upset and he wasn’t really the type to take things back. 

Sam hadn’t expected the man to come back for a long time, if at all, that night so imagine his surprise when his roommate was back before he could truly stop crying. And was pushing him onto the ground. And kissing him. And pledging himself to him and it was all a lot. Sam had been completely, one hundred percent overwhelmed by the tidal wave that was Brady’s passion. 

Waking up, Sam was still in the man’s arms so he couldn’t even entertain the idea of it all being a dream, despite how unbelievable it all was. Whatever ideas Sam might have entertained the morning after about Brady just wanting to use him for sex also wasn’t going to fly. Not only now, three weeks later, had they not had sex once, but Brady had ensured every day that they’d maintained whatever closeness they’d established back then. 

They shared only one class since Brady’s degree change, not that they shared very many classes to begin with anyway, but when they did have their Latin class together, Brady always chose to sit next to Sam. That in and of itself was not a big deal even if Brady had usually spent their shared classes together leaving Sam alone to sit with some of his party friends, but the things he had occupied himself with doing the entirety of that shared class was. 

His boyfriend being the nonsense kind of person who goofed off during class on the sly. 

And he used Sam to do it; Sam felt used. 

When they were in their dorms and in the hallways, Brady would often shower Sam with scattered kisses and sneakily hold his hand, still managing to surprise Sam when he did these things. In their shared class together, he kicked it up a notch. Winding their legs together, scooting their chairs towards each other to the point that they were all but pressed together, jovially whispering into Sam’s ear even when their teacher was talking. 

Nothing Sam said could get his boyfriend to stop and he would be lying if he said that he completely hated it. 

Sam distantly heard his professor call an end to the class, jolting him out of his thoughts for the first time; he couldn’t stop himself from glancing at the clock. Damn! He’d zoned out completely for a full thirty minutes! The Winchester groaned miserably in the confines of his own mind. He hadn’t paid attention to anything that happened after that point, he hadn’t taken any notes!

_ Whatever _ , Sam thought to himself.  _ The professor just reads from the book without adding anything, anyway. I’ll just read over the chapter later.  _ He pulled his backpack on and headed out of the classroom after the other stragglers. 

He stopped just a few feet outside of the classroom as he saw two students talking. He wasn’t sure exactly why he stopped until his brain processed what they were saying. 

“What were you doing trying to get my attention in class? I was busy!” 

“Well, I just wanted to see if you heard the same rumors I heard!” 

“Which rumor?”

“The one about that Tyson Brady!  _ I _ heard he quit his degree!” 

“Uh huh. And where did you hear _ that _ one? It’s absurd!” 

“Heard it from my cousin that usually sits next to him in one of his classes. Teacher said he dropped the class and the same thing happened in all of Tyson’s other classes! They’ve seen him around the school, so he hasn’t dropped out, but he might be planning to! Wouldn’t it be cool if he did? The son of such a big businessman dropping out of school!” 

“Wow, I didn’t hear any of that! So he didn’t drop out, just dropped all his classes? What’s up with that?”

“I think he changed his degree program to something else. Don’t know what it is, though. My cousin’s trying to find out, but I heard it was some silly little degree in culture or something. Can you believe that? Degree completely paid for in a place like Stanford and he drops Business for whatever? Pathetic, isn’t it? I knew he was a screwup…” 

“At least he only took a semester to change it and didn’t waste too much of his time and money.” 

“I guess not. Still stupid, though. Wonder if he’s embarrassed at all?”   
  


The two students, taking no notice of him, wandered off down the hall without even bothering to glance back at the classroom. It was at times like this that Sam really wished he could blush, because _ god _ he felt so embarrassed. It wasn’t like he was ashamed of Brady exactly, he was glad to have his new boyfriend, but sometimes the things Brady did stuck Sam with second-hand embarrassment. 

Whether it was the other man making an ass of himself at a party or just doing any number of things without thinking, Brady often did things that made Sam wish he could stick his head in the ground like an ostrich. This was one of those things. Sam hurried down the other side of the hallway, a roundabout way of getting to his dorm room but one that gave him time to whine to himself. 

Right when things could have been perfect in his life, Brady had to go and do this and Sam didn’t understand it. It made no sense and even their peers at school saw it. But, per his usual, Brady really didn’t care and Sam was left lost in his wake. Again, as usual. 

\--------------

His phone rang. Brady sighed irritably as he fished the device out of his pocket. He’d gotten call after call from the previous Brady’s party friends trying to get him to come out and do some stuff. Normally, he’d be all in for some fun when he wasn’t working (or even while he was working), but no can do this time. 

Working Sam over to his way of thinking specifically required Brady to not be a complete loose canon. Suuuuure...Sam is used to the old Brady so he could get away with some goofing off, but that didn’t mean that he would still end up respecting Brady’s worldview if he acted too much like the old Brady. Hell, Brady didn’t even know what it was about the old Brady that got Sam to like him in the first place!! He was all for not looking a gift horse in the mouth, but seriously...how did that forgettable Daddy's Boy manage that fucking feat? 

Whatever. Regardless of the fact that Sam liked him even as he was, that didn’t necessarily mean that the human respected him like this. Normally, he wouldn’t give a shit about who respected him outside of other demons, but his whole goal in all of this was to manipulate Sam into wanting to be a hunter again, one way or another. If Sam just continues seeing him as an irresponsible jerk off, then Brady wouldn’t even be able to accomplish that by faking his own death. 

All this would be fucking pointless and he’d be an abject failure. 

So he’d been not-so-kindly telling old Brady’s former party buddies to screw off and stop bothering him. Annoyingly, since the old Brady had a penchant for saying things he didn’t mean without thinking them through or completely changing his mind on a moment’s notice, they weren’t getting the hint that he was serious and continued to bug him every so often. Realizing this wasn’t the first nor the last time Brady wanted to strangle the human soul that used to be in that body. 

Brady had been preparing himself for more of the same, when he actually got a look at the caller ID. And, just like that, he wished it was more of those party dicks. 

Old Brady’s illustrious father. His father now, he supposed, until he ditched the body. He’d known there was going to be annoyance coming from that direction when the dick human from this body’s memories found out what he did, but he honestly didn’t expect it so soon. Seriously, it’s been less than a month and how did he even find out? 

…

He would bet it was the office bitch. 

…

Whatever, he better answer. 

Answering the phone, he was glad that he’d been holding the phone away from his ear, because if he hadn’t, he would have had his sensitive demonic eardrums burst out. Strike one against the human who was already making his shitlist.

“What the HELL do you think you’re doing, Boy?!” The gruff, aged voice screeched out through the speakers. Brady winced in agitation. 

“Hello to you too, Dad. And could you be more specific about that? I do a lot of things.” The demon responded. 

“You  _ know _ what I’m talking about!” He did. “Do you think this is funny?!” Yes, quite. “Do you have any idea what my reaction was when I got a call from the school notifying me that you backed out of the degree program I chose for you?!” He could hazard a guess. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?” 

Brady wouldn’t have stopped himself from replying even if he wanted to. “Having fun.” Oh, he could hear a gasket blowing on the other end of the line…

“Fun! Fun?! Schooling is not meant to be fun!  _ Business _ is not meant to be fun! LIFE is not meant to be fun! Your job is to graduate college with the right degree and report back here for work. I’m not paying for your college so you can get some hippie degree and goof off with your friends!” Gasket blown. Also, rude. Hippie degree? Brady was older than this human by centuries and he didn’t talk like such a geezer. 

All right. Time to kiss ass to avoid an irksome argument.

“Okay, okay. Calm down, I said that wrong. I’m just trying something new out, seeing if I like it. It doesn’t have to go past this semester. Surely you want me to get my experimenting out now before I come back and start working for you?” Psychological manipulation R US. 

A frustrated sigh came from the other side of the line. “I see your goal, but mine is this: You need to graduate from a respectable college with a respectable degree. If you can’t do that, then I’m not going to continue paying for you to go gallivanting off and playing around. Whatever you’re playing at, it ends after this semester and after that,  _ whatever this is  _ gets fixed. Got it?” 

_ His father _ was clearly used to sounding intimidating and stern, but all Brady wanted to do was stab him in the throat and watch him bleed out. “Got it. You can count on me, Boss!” He answered back, mocking his “father” with a faux cheerful voice. 

An annoyed grunt. “You’re a disgrace.” The man responded and hung up. 

Brady stared at the phone in his hand before finally shoving it into his pocket and stomped off down the hall. The shit he has to put up with from humans sometimes…

Brady trudges up to him and Sam’s room in a fit of pique, all the other students walking towards him down the hallway parting like the red sea in the face of his mood. He couldn’t wait to see Sam after that fucking phone call, the high-strung human was ironically a good source of relaxation for him. But seriously, he was going to have to do something about his father at some point. He could put it off for now, but considering the human expects him to drop his plans by the end of the semester, which he was decidedly not going to do.

Brady had to get into their room and slammed their door behind him before he could fully relax. Sam had a class after his so his hunter wouldn’t be back for another hour.  _ Might as well get ready for him,  _ Brady smirked to himself. 

He’d been taking it easy on Sam since getting the human together with him, mostly because he didn’t want to push the college student too far too fast. To do so would be detrimental to his plan. However, he did like messing with the human a bit, screwing up his too organized world. The other Brady at least had the right idea about loosening Sam up a bit.

And just because they haven’t been having sex, it didn’t mean he couldn’t still get close to and even flirt with Sam. He didn’t want his connection with the hunter to be just sexual, otherwise he’d never get at the guy’s mind. He wasn’t some siren, after all; one blowjob and you could convince anyone to do anything. 

During the last week, he and Sam have been studying together, going over their shared material for their one class and the rest of the material for their other ones. It’s a good way to introduce Sam to his folklore classwork without making the hunter feel like Brady is forcing it on him. Brady starts peeling off his clothes for the day and heads over to the closet to try on some more relaxing clothing...though not his own. 

Some light teasing is in order for when Sam gets back. 


	5. Study Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy a short but cute chapter of the boys studying together! And Sam being a pining little thing.

Sam quietly closed their dorm room door, rubbing the back of his neck tiredly. A full day of classes, mixed with overhearing that embarrassing discussion from the other students, followed up with taking the longer way around to get to the dorms so he wouldn’t have to interact with any of them had him completely worn out. And he now had schoolwork and studying to do before he could call it a day. Since he wasn’t much of a napper, that meant he wasn’t going to be able to get much relaxation before tackling all of that. 

He couldn’t just decide to not do it, either. Even if he called off the study session with Brady, who’d definitely be encouraging him to be more lackadaisical about schoolwork, his homework couldn’t be put off and it needed to get done. Better to just get it over with, then….

At least studying with Brady had proven to actually be fun. 

In spite of whatever expectation Sam had when Brady suggested they start studying together regularly, his boyfriend was actually a good study partner. The other man was actually able to stay focussed on the studying and not get distracted onto other topics. Moreover, Brady asked some really good questions about Sam’s classwork when they were working together, noticing some things that even Sam hadn’t. 

Brady hadn’t been asking for much help studying for most of his classes and Sam couldn’t tell if that was because he didn’t want help with it or if it had something to do with Sam not really supporting his degree change. 

“I’m back!” Sam called as soon as the door was closed, but as soon as he looked up, he saw Brady. Right there. On his bed. 

Okay, that in and of itself wasn’t unusual. They didn’t have many chairs in their rooms and the ones they did have weren’t exactly the most comfortable, so Sam and Brady both did spend a lot of time on theirs or each other's beds, using them as both chairs and desks. What did strike Sam as out of the ordinary and what made his heart skip a little bit in his chest was what Brady was wearing. It was just an ordinary flannel shirt with tan shorts, but they were _ Sam’s  _ clothes!

There was just something about that fact that set Sam’s nerves alight, but he couldn’t even begin to say what that was…

Sam shivered. Nope, he was not letting Brady get to him right now. He just wanted to do his homework and go to bed. 

Sam forced a nonchalant expression on his face, but he would bet his eyes were still wide. “Hey, Brady. How was your day?” Sam asked calmly, tossing his backpack onto the floor by the door and stepping towards his bed with Brady in it. As usual, it didn’t seem to matter to his boyfriend that Sam wasn’t going to show how much he was jerking him around, Brady seemed to know and take satisfaction from it, anyway. 

“Oh, I’m good, Sam. Today’s been great.” He gave a lazy smirk and stretched his arms over his head languidly, Sam’s shirt sliding up and then back down his body as he did so. Brady moaned, Sam groaned. “So you ready to study?” His boyfriend asked, sitting up on the bed. 

“Yeah, I’m ready.” Sam nodded, not bothering to change his clothes and taking steps towards his bed. Brady smiled and patted the bed next to him before reaching over to the side and grabbing a few of his textbooks. 

Right, he needed those. Sam backed towards his backpack and grabbed the textbooks with the chapters he needed to read, tossing it onto the bed before plopping onto it himself. Before the bed even had time to settle, Brady was scooting over and pressing up against him. The men’s feet all the way up to their shoulders. 

“So did anything fun happen in class today?” Brady asked, seemingly in no great hurry to get to work. “Anyone do something stupid in class? The teachers decide to be interesting, for once? Oh! Did you see a Dark Watcher watching you?” Somehow, the man managed to say even this with a slightly lascivious smirk. HOW. 

“No, none of those things. Though at least I have proof now that the folklore classes are definitely getting to you.” Sam said with an eye roll. 

He would’ve at least liked to say that the part about the teachers was at least correct, but...Sam sighed.  _ Well, school is work, it’s not supposed to be fun. _ Sam supposed. “So what are we tackling today for your classes? For me, I need to make notes on these three chapters…” And together those chapters are roughly 105 pages.  _ Fuck me,  _ Sam thought, closing his eyes for a moment. 

“Not much.” Brady answered, easily going with the new direction of the conversation. I’m supposed to read these two short chapters and then choose one of the creatures in them to do additional research on.” He looked over at Sam with a giddy look on his face. “Think I could do the dark watchers?” He asked. 

Sam rolled his eyes again. “You and your Dark Watchers.” He sighed fondly. “I don’t know if you can do your homework on those. Are they in the chapters you’re supposed to read?” He raised an expectant eyebrow at his boyfriend. 

Brady chuckled in light embarrassment, propping himself up on his elbow and rubbing the back of his head with one hand. “I haven’t read the chapters, yet.” Yeah, Sam figured. 

“Then you shouldn’t be making plans ahead of time about what monster you want to do.” Sam stated simple, a light smile tugging at his lips. “You have to read the chapter first and don’t get your hopes up about the Dark Watchers being in it.” 

“Why?” Brady sent Sam a sly look. “Have you been paying attention to the text?” 

“No.” Sam scoffed and denied. A lie, but Brady didn’t need to know that. “I’m not even the one doing the reading. You don’t need my help nearly as much as you say you do.” And he didn’t. Even though a lot of the information in the books was incorrect, slightly off, or outright missing; Brady was very good at reasoning the information out and memorising it. The Winchester was basically ready to say that his boyfriend had a photographic memory, he seemed like he was able to recall anything they’d read before once it became useful. 

Sam caught a glance of Brady’s arm, rubbing against the fabric of Sam’s own shirt that he was wearing, contrasted against the bed as his boyfriend laid out on it. He immediately darted his eyes away from the spot and refused to look back at it. 

“Hmm.” Brady hummed thoughtfully, pushing his pencil up against his lip and sending a half-lidded look at Sam. “Maybe I just like spending time with you.” 

Sam didn’t like the things that the smile he was flashed did to him. That thing Brady would do where he allowed a slightly haughty and slightly languid half-smirk to come onto his face while his eyelids went half-mast. It was absolutely unfair, especially with how little sex they were having. 

Sam squashed that last thought down, immediately. It’s not like he had a problem with that! So what if they were dating now and sometimes the looks Brady gave him made him a little hot and bothered? Brady hadn’t made another move to initiate sex again after that first night and that was fine with him! The relationship was already going fast enough for him, anyway. 

…

..

No, he was not being defensive! 

“...Sam?” Brady’s voice broke Sam out of his thoughts  _ yet again _ and the teenager darted his brown eyes up to lock with the other man’s. 

“Uh…” Sam started awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head. “How long were you calling me?” Sadly, asking that question only added to his embarrassment when he got the answer to it.

“That was the first time.” Brady smiled widely, a small amount of sadism hanging off its edges. 

_ Great.  _ Sam thought, wanting to smack his head.  _ Now he definitely knows I wasn’t paying attention for a while! Geez, what’s wrong with me?  _

“Anyways, what were you thinking about?” Brady asked, curiously. 

“I...well, I was…” Sam stumbled over his words and broke off. How could he tell Brady he was thinking about him? Or worse! Sex! Oh absolutely not, he would die of embarrassment! 

Brady just watched him struggle, clearly amused by the situation. His boyfriend’s lips stretched into a soft smile, which only added to Sam’s fluster. Sam couldn’t find his words even after half a minute and he was moments away from forcefully pulling himself together when Brady denied him that by beating him to it and snickering. 

His boyfriend turned to look across the room at nothing before looking back at Sam. “You’re especially expressive when you’re like this, Sam. Did anyone ever tell you that? All flustered and cute!” Brady gave him a close eyed smile at this. 

Sam fought his hand down from where it had automatically reached up to rub the back of his neck. He hadn’t been called cute by anyone in his life, besides Dean and his brother hadn’t called him that since he was a little kid. Being an eighteen year old that was toned from his time spent hunting and who was tall enough to tower over his peers, Sam hadn’t expected to be cute to anyone ever again. 

Stupid Brady, saying things like this with that smile! In the time it took Sam to refocus on Brady, his boyfriend had turned back to his textbook and seemed to be skimming over a page. Fine, two could play at this game! 

Before he could chicken out of it, Sam reached out and put his hand on top of Brady’s resting on the textbook. Brady’s whole body twitched in surprise, but when he looked back up at Sam, his expression was the softest Sam had ever seen it. No...actually, now that he thought about it, he remembered Brady having a similar expression late into the night they’d shared together. 

The molted warmness in the dark brown eyes, the soft edges to the barely-there smile, the slight tilt of his head to the side. It made Sam feel like he was floating and it was disorienting, dammit! 

Almost as if he didn’t want Sam to see the expression, Brady turned away and pushed his face closer to the textbook. Sam gave a light squeeze to his boyfriend’s hand, but didn’t say anything. Brady’s next words were probably meant as a distraction. 

“Hey, Sam, do you know anything about the Jersey Devil?” 

The Winchester huffed and leaned over his boyfriend’s shoulder so he could read the page while he thought back to his father’s past cases for anything useful. He didn’t really notice the soft smile on his own face. 


	6. Of A Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our boys study some more and they're cute together!

Okay, Sam could admit when he was wrong. 

Sam had initially thought that helping his boyfriend with his classwork would be an absolute nightmare, a continual test of his patience. After all, how could it not be? Sam had left all of that behind, all of the witches and ghosts and demons and now Brady was bringing it all back up through his studies! How could he not be uncomfortable?

...is what Sam had thought at the beginning. 

After all, wasn’t it bad enough that Brady had - for seemingly no reason - switched his degree to something that couldn’t be any more hunter related without knowing Sam’s background? Apparently not, because his new boyfriend then had to up the ante by continually asking Sam for study sessions, taking away the luxury of getting to ignore what Brady’s area of study now was. So why, exactly, was Sam...comfortable? 

It didn’t happen all at once, of course, but over the course of days, their studying sessions had slipped into a routine. They mostly worked quietly side-by-side, but there were several times each session where one would ask the other for some insight or just drag the other into a conversation. Sam found himself getting just a little more tolerant of mythology coming back into his life, but the routine itself really helped. It felt...normal. It shouldn’t feel normal. 

And if the Winchester had maybe been under the foolish insight that he would mostly be helping Brady with  _ his _ work during the study sessions, then he was rudely jerked away from this idea on their second study session. Not that Sam suddenly thought his boyfriend was dumb now that he was studying folklore! Besides, he’d been targeting a business degree first. It was just that law was incredibly hard and generalized, so he wasn’t expecting  _ anyone _ who’s taken only one or two very specialized law classes to be able to offer much support. 

Even if Sam hadn’t really seen it that way, he’d been arrogant. He could see that now. He still remembered that second day of study, the memory starting with sheer frustration, rimmed with embarrassment, and ending with a feeling of awe. 

_ Sam had felt so frustrated as he ran a hand through his hair. His boyfriend had asked him what in his homework had him so stressed and so he told him quickly, but he didn’t really think Brady could be of any real help. “Generalized Subject Evidence. It’s what we’re learning this week and it’s pretty confusing with its “exceptions” and “hearsay” rules…” Sam pointed to the open page of his textbook as he said it and Brady read some of the page over his shoulder for a minute before replying.  _

_ “Why don’t you look at Contributory Negligence? I know they’re probably in different chapters since they aren’t really strongly connected, but in this case it might give you something different to talk about. After all, Contributory Negligence seems like something that would be easy to argue for and it counts as neither physical evidence or hearsay, right?”  _

_ Sam looked over his shoulder at his boyfriend with his mouth hanging open, which Brady met with a wide smirk of his own. And to think this person was studying folklore. _

Brady had barely read any of the text in the textbook that Sam himself had poured over and he’d already had a decent direction for Sam to go in with his homework...maybe that was the point. Brady hadn’t read every inch of the chapter and obsessed over every line. He speed read the nearest passage and moved onto his idea. He also seemed to know at least some of the law terms and their descriptions and used them together in a way Sam hadn’t thought of. 

He wouldn’t have considered combining a term from several chapters over, “Contributory Negligence”, with the chapter he was currently reading, even as he could see now (thanks to Brady) that they were at least worth talking about together. Sam had bit his lip, feeling both embarrassed that he hadn’t thought outside the box in the hours he’d been thinking about his homework while it only took Brady three minutes and also feeling a surprising amount of happiness at the same time. 

His boyfriend was here for him. 

Brady had continued to give Sam hints and ideas like that, giving new perspectives and resources (which must have been how he knew so much about law) that helped him come to terms with and expand on difficult topics. Now, he was grateful to have him by his side for this. It also made Sam determined to redouble his efforts to be useful to Brady in his own studies. 

Sam wasn’t...he still wasn’t comfortable with the supernatural, so much heartbreak and family bitterness wrapped up in it. The supernatural was simply  _ un _ natural, but if that’s what Brady wanted—!

And so Sam threw his not inconsiderable experience with the real monsters of the world as well as his even better history with pouring over vague texts to give Brady some new perspectives on the things he was being asked to study, as well. While being careful not to go directly against whatever crap was written in his boyfriend’s textbook, of course. People, especially professors, didn’t like to be told that their resources were factually incorrect, especially when you couldn’t tell them why it was so and he wasn’t setting Brady up for that. No way. 

Sam glanced up from where he was writing in his notebook and looked at his boyfriend’s side profile for a bit. He couldn’t help himself, Brady was so handsome and he was  _ actually his _ . Not just his roommate, but  _ his _ and it was more than anything he’d ever hoped to dream of. Brady must have felt his boyfriend’s eyes on him and looked up at him, two pairs of brown eyes clashing immediately. 

It was times like this that Sam was thankful that he didn’t actually seem physically capable of blushing, otherwise he was sure he would have lit up like a Christmas light. Not that his embarrassment and nervousness wasn’t probably still obvious with all the fidgeting he did. Brady could probably tell what emotions he was feeling a mile away, the bastard. 

“What are you thinking about?” Brady asked suddenly. 

“Uh…” Sam jerked suddenly. “I was thinking about your classwork.” Well, that was at least true. 

“Ah, then what’d you think about the religion aspect of it?” Brady asked, resting his chin on his hand as he kept his full attention on Sam. 

“Religion?” Sam questioned, tilting his head and immediately feeling foolish for not knowing what Brady was talking about. 

Brady smirked softly as he replied. Until he’d started dating the other man, Sam honestly hadn’t known that a smirk could be soft. “Yeah? Right now the creatures this chapter tackles start in Native American folklore and then the chapter goes on to talk about the changes their mythology went through with the introduction of the settlers and Christianity. There’s even some pagan deities being discussed in here, I think.” Brady flipped through a few of the pages mindlessly but utterly refused to move his eyes away from Sam at all. 

Yeah, Sam was really glad he couldn’t seem to blush. 

“Oh, huh.” Sam said thoughtlessly, his mind turning over this information. That actually sounded really interesting. “I suppose I don’t know much about that besides what I learned in school and I got shuffled around to a lot of different ones...what about you? What do you think?” Okay, so he was fishing for information. Give him a break, he hadn’t been paying the best attention. 

Brady hummed as he finally turned his attention back to his book and Sam heaved a sigh of relief. Brady’s dark brown eyes found a picture of some deity and stared at it as he replied. “I think it’s probably inaccurate that people interpreted whatever they wanted out of the gods and monsters they came in contact with based on their religion. Even if people tend to see what they want and what they’re familiar with, it doesn’t make a lot of sense in this case.”

That...was not what Sam had been expecting. And it shot his level of curiosity up to an eleven. “What do you mean by that?” He stared at Brady with wide eyes and his boyfriend seemed to preen under the attention. 

“Well,” Brady started. “It just seems strange that so many people from vastly different communities and religions in the past that have never come into contact with each other had such similar - if not outright identical - ideas of what kind of monsters were out there and even what they looked like, but settlers from Europe come over here and suddenly they make all sorts of changes to established lore? Do you think that sounds normal, Sweetheart?” 

For once, Sam was easily able to ignore the thrill he got up his spine from the cute nickname Brady sometimes gave him, his mind too stuck on what he was being asked. Well, it was far from out of the realm of possibility, but now that Brady put it that way...Sam shook his head to the negative. It didn’t sound as reasonable as his schools had always made it sound. 

“I didn’t think so, either.” Brady smiled. Not smirked. Smiled.

“So...what’s an alternative idea?” Sam forced out, ignoring the way his heart stuttered at the sight. 

“Mine was that rather than it being the settlers who changed the monsters and especially the gods, maybe it was the gods that changed themselves.” Brady stated, his eyes faraway in thought. 

Sam blinked. The first second he heard Brady’s idea, it seemed foolish and baseless, but the idea sank its hooks into his mind within the next second. It was one of those ideas that took a second for someone to really acclimate to and for good reason. Sam had never heard someone suggest anything like that and he certainly hadn’t considered anything like it himself! How far had Brady taken this thought..? “What do you mean by ‘changing themselves’?” 

Brady smirked again. “I mean that if gods are clever and powerful, then why shouldn’t they be aware of changes in their environment? New people coming in with different beliefs, for example. Why shouldn’t they, over the course of time, change some of the ways they act and even the way they look to either be more threatening or more familiar to the new creatures in their environment?” 

_ Indeed, why not?  _ Sam thought. He’d never considered religion and monsters like this before. He wondered if pagan deities and even God actually existed, but even if they didn’t, it was an interesting thought experiment that he’d never once done. He usually liked thought experiments. 

Prior to this, Sam’s interest in religion had always been something rebellious. It was something he believed in spite of his entire life. From his father’s complete disparaging of any kind of religion whatsoever or the hunter lifestyle itself not being very conductive to believing in any purely good beings like God. 

Still, he’d always  _ wanted _ to believe in God and angels. In all likelihood, it was a coping mechanism in his too tough younger years. With all the terrible, dark things he and his brother grew up fighting, how could he get through his days truly thinking that that was all there was out there? 

But here, suddenly, it didn’t feel like he was fighting against anything. Not an oppressive father who’d lost the ability to hope long ago and killed any ability in his own sons, not a depressing lifestyle centered around facing the darkest things to exist. During this conversation with Brady, he felt more encouraged than he had in a long time. 

“What are you thinking about now?” Brady smiled pleasantly, his eyes half-mast as he gazed at Sam. The former hunter might have felt more embarrassed about his zoning off again if Brady hadn’t been looking so...fondly...at him. His roommate didn’t seem troubled by it at all, not that much seemed to trouble him. 

And Sam didn’t feel like hiding what he was thinking this time. 

“I was thinking about religion...and my dad.” Sam said quietly, his gaze ducking down to the bedsheet. 

“What about your dad?” Brady asked nonchalantly, his tone suggesting that he thought Sam’s dad wasn’t anything important. Sam wasn’t sure whether the casual disinterest in Sam’s fraught relationship with his father was a comfort to him in that moment or not. Sam glanced up just long enough to get a look at the politely interested look on Brady’s face but then his eyes went right back down to the bedspread. 

“Believing in religion, any kind of religion, was always...frowned upon in our house growing up. My brother was always like my dad, not wanting to talk about things they couldn’t see and touch for themselves. I could never talk about God or angels or even pagan religions at home. They didn’t like it.” Sam determinedly continued. “They didn’t want to believe in anything good.” He refused to think about the way his voice cracked when they said that last bit. 

Brady hummed thoughtfully. “So you’re the type of person who finds it easy to believe in things that can’t be proved or disproved - to go on faith - and whenever you tried to be yourself around the rest of your family - who were the opposite - you were shut down, huh?” 

Brady still didn’t sound particularly bothered, but his understanding words were enough to make Sam lift his head and look his boyfriend in the face. The other man wasn’t smiling or smirking this time, but instead wore a considering frown. “And how did that make you feel about religion?” 

Always with the tough questions. “I don’t know.” Sam said awkwardly. Not entirely truthful, but he’d be lying if he said he entirely knew how he felt about it all. 

“I think I know.” Brady said, leaning back a little. Then he smirked devilishly. “It made you like it more.” 

Sam’s heart thumped and his eyes widened. “What?” He asked, because yes, that hit uncomfortably deep.    
  


“I know people, Sammy.” That name with that smirk was not okay, Sam’s heart wasn’t having it! “The more you’re told not to do something, the more you  _ really  _ want to. After a while, you lose your original reasons for doing something and it instead becomes a symbol of resistance before anything else.” He tilted his head alluringly and Sam hurried to distract himself with the small amount of indignance he felt at the comment. 

“I never forgot why I wanted to believe in God!” Sam asserted, agitated. He’d never forgotten his need to believe in the good of the world, even though Brady’s assessment of the situation was pretty right!

Brady’s smirk turned into a smile at that. A real smile, not something mocking. “Good, I’m glad.” His words were surprising and surprisingly genuine. They took the wind right out of Sam’s sails and he could do nothing but stare in awe at his boyfriend who gazed easily back at him. 

“R-Really?” Sam found himself asking, fidgeting slightly as his nervousness increased. Why was Brady happy for him about that? Why did his boyfriend make him feel so nervous all the time? He really didn’t need the help.

“Yeah. Really.” Brady kept his smile. The other man raised his hand and gently cupped the back of Sam’s head. “I’m glad you never forgot your reasons.” And his voice and his grip were so soft that Sam felt strangely but undeniably soothed. 

Sam gasped as the hand on the back of his head pushed firmly and the Winchester didn’t fight it, following the pressure down onto his boyfriend’s lap. He shuddered lightly as he nudged his head lightly onto Brady’s lap. 

“It’s okay.” Brady’s voice was still very soft as he said this. “You can be yourself here. Don’t worry about fighting against your father’s teachings. Just do what’s right and explore yourself more. Whether that means religion or something else.” 

Brady’s hand starts lightly stroking through Sam’s hair, comforting him. 

He loves it. 

Sam falls asleep on Brady’s lap.


End file.
